Pacific Rim Uprising’s Jaegers Have ‘Better Upgrades’

John Boyega says the Kaiju are much more intelligent in Pacific Rim Uprising and the Jaegers have even better upgrades. The upcoming Pacific Rim sequel arrives five years after Guillermo del Toro’s original film hit theaters in 2013. Although the movie received generally positive reviews, it wasn’t quite the success story that Universal and Legendary Pictures were hoping for. It grossed $411 million at the worldwide box office (of which only $101.8 million was earned domestically) against an estimated production budget of $190 million. Thanks in large part to its overwhelming success in China, the studio has since commissioned a sequel.

The upcoming Steven S. DeKnight-directed sequel takes place 10 years after The Battle of the Breach, the concluding event of the first movie in which nearly every Jaeger pilot except for Charlie Hunnam’s Raleigh Becket and Rinko Kikuchi’s Mako Mori had died defending the Breach. At this point, the Jaeger program has been restored and Stacker Pentecost’s (Idris Elba) son, Jake Pentecost, has rejoined the Pan Pacific Defense Corps, along with the new generation of pilots, in order to defend the planet against another Kaiju invasion.

Following up yesterday’s comments about Pacific Rim Uprising being “larger than life,” Boyega told IGN that the Jaeger pilots will have their work cut out for them, seeing as the Kaiju have become much more intelligent this time around.

“As you know, Pacific Rim 1 ended with Stacker Pentecost [played by Idris Elba] dying, and Raleigh [played by Charlie Hunnam] dying as well, and they feel like they’ve closed the Breach, but unfortunately the enemy has grown more intelligent and has other ways of doing things, and we are met with a rogue character.”

As previously mentioned, Hunnam’s Raleigh didn’t perish in Pacific Rim, so it seems that either Boyega made an honest mistake or that Raleigh has died off-screen sometime between the two installments. Unfortunately, this wouldn’t be the first time that a movie studio has killed off a character because the actor or actress wasn’t appearing in the sequel — but we may not discover the character’s actual whereabouts until the sequel hits next year. As for the enemy’s perceived increase in intelligence and presumed aggressiveness, the PPDC have upgraded their Jaeger mechs in response.

“We’ve got better upgrades. The robots are moving much more swift. Yeah, we’re like ballerinas up in there, it’s fantastic.”

It makes sense that, in addition to retrofitting the Jaegers with new weapons in the sequel, the mechs have also shed some weight, thereby making them swifter in combat. Hopefully, people will get to see the new Jaegers for themselves whenever the sequel’s first trailer arrives. The director recently said that the first trailer for Pacific Rim Uprising should release soon, though with the sequel being pushed back one month, it’s possible that audiences will have to wait sometime before seeing Boyega and the upgraded mechs in action.